I see a lot of
images posted
on the color issue on Mars... NASA shows what they
call "real color" which
are usually dark with a brownish reddish tint...

The CP crowd
shows us images
where the scenery is as bright as any on Earth...

Well they
can't BOTH be right...

NASA says...
the enhanced color
images are shown "as they would appear in Earth
level light..." Okay I
can buy that... if you had the same amount of
sunlight on Mars as you do
on Earth, then those images that show blue sky etc
would in fact be true
color... This makes sense ...

But pray tell
me how if you were
standing on Mars that you would get the same level
of light on Mars as
you do on Earth? Last I checked the Sun was a LOT
further away and appears
a lot smaller in the Martian sky....

Do we just
ignore this minor
annoying detail? I can deal with that... as soon
as you show me where the
extra light comes from....

Yes the SKY IS
BLUE on Mars...
but it is darker because of the lack of sunlight,
and because there are
planet wide dust storms almost constantly... and
its colder for the same
reason... and unless we can add a new source of
heat and light, nothing
will change...

quote:
Originally posted by
curiousbeliever"The sky is
blue on Mars.
It just looks red in many photos because of NASA
photoshop artists. I think
NASA even admitted there was a blue sky at one
point and said that it looks
red in the photos because of the dust from dust
storms (damage control)."

But look here colors on Viking image
: coz - red is
caused by storm, when storm is gone - colors are
normal!!

Excerpt

"Temporary, the surface illumination
is really red,
caused by dust-storms, darkening the sky. The image
on the left was taken
shortly after or during such a storm and the diffuse
light with almost
no shadows is visible. In contrast to this, the
image on the right, shows
sharp shadows and clear blue sky, the normal
condition on Mars.On the image-data of the Viking- and
Pathfinder-Missions,
this diffuse illumination is a very rare condition
and not the normal state,
as NASA seems to publish it with their dull-red
picture..."

The image below taken by Spirit
Rover is one from NASA
and is "Radiometrically Calibrated" This image
represents true color on
Mars. These images are not generally released to the
public yet are not
difficult to find. However for the time being you
will have to track them
down yourself as we are not ready to hand over this
source just yet...

Now I have done field work in
geology for most of my
life and the bluish black rocks and the sand in the
image below look just
like the volcanic Scoria, a type of Basalt in the
desert sands here in
Nevada... This summer I will go and take some photos
of the area so we
have a direct comparison.

In the meantime below is a small
sample of Scoria or
Vesicular Basalt. You can see the bluish black
natural color of this material
and it is readily found on Earth as one of the more
common lavas...

This gives me a pretty good
reference to be able to
see that the image above is indeed true color on
Mars...

The Pancam does an acceptable job on
the red, blue,
and green panels; however, the yellow panel appears
orange in the Pancam
image. This may be a result of the unusual pigments
used on the calibration
target and the narrowness of the Pancam filters. The
image in Figure 3
on the far right shows the calibration target taken
by the Pancam on Mars.
The Pancam image on Earth and the Pancam image on
Mars appear quite similar.
This is not the result one would expect if the
illumination on Mars was
substantially redder than that on Earth.

Perhaps this is the
best goal for the production of
color imagery from Mars. Rather than search
endlessly for the unknown illumination
of the surface, the color calibration charts should
be used to render the
Martian scenery as it would appear on Earth. Martian
objects would be more
easily understood if they were illuminated by
lighting conditions with
which we are all familiar.

In any case, the
corrections for the Martian illumination
are suspect. In any published final image, it is
essential that the assumed
illumination model be the same for the colored
panels as it is for the
gray. These panels are only centimeters apart and
they are surely bathed
identical illumination.

3. SUMMARY

Images of the color calibration
chart taken on Mars
for the express purpose of verifying calibration
seem to be in reasonable
agreement with calibration images taken on Earth
under Earth-like illumination
conditions. However, calibration charts shown
inadvertently on production
panoramic images are not compatible with those
images made for the express
purpose of calibration. This incompatibility is in
two areas. First, the
gray panel pixel values, while having the same slope
in both images, have
substantially different offsets. A hypothesis of
variable illumination
is only expected to change the slope. The offset at
the darkest pixel values
should always be zero. Black pixels, which are at
the intercept, should
not be affected by illumination. The observed
offsets are preferential
to the red and minimize blue. However, in addition
to these unusual linear
changes, there is also observed a non-linear
suppression of blue reflectivity
in the L6 channel on the blue color panel. The L6
channel in the mosaic
panorama shows virtually no response on the blue
color panel.Color calibration charts in
production MER images
should either match the charts generated during
calibration or should differ
from them by a single uniform illumination model,
expressed as overall
multipliers for the red, green and blue channels.Otherwise, production Martian images
should either
be made using the color chart to match Earth
illumination, or should be
made by trusting the luminosity calibrations made on
Earth before launch.

quote:
Originally posted by
zorgonLOL NASA
uses red shift,
Keith uses Blue shift ( as evident again by the
blue color on the corner
that shows a piece of the rover... So we will
never see an "unshifted"
image it seems

Couldn't agree more!

I found this on some forum -
question about why are
we not sending this
camera
setup to Mars ???

quote:
Originally posted by
blue birdCouldn't
agree more!I found this
on some forum
- question about why are we not sendingthis camera
setup to Mars
???

Ah yes the Ikonos Satellite owned by
Space imaging
"GeoEye" They have a great poster and zoomable image
of AREA
51
- GROOM LAKE

I have posted this satellite before
showing the Tsangpo
River Gorge in full capability of this satellite...
here it is again for
those who missed it...(images of this quality cost
thousands of dollars)
(click for larger version)

Now this company has one image of
the oon and I wrote
them asking if they had more images. They do not
image the moon, and their
website states simply. "We will not be taking photos
of the moon.." Short
sweet and to the point.. but it leaves me asking
"Why?" Their answer was
that the satellite was designed for Earth imaging...

Yes we could easily put such a
camera on a Lunar or
Mars orbiter... and Department of Defense
descriptions (as well as manufactures)
state that they do indeed have such cameras out
there...

Its just that you and I won't get to
see those images
any time soon...

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